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This post is a perfect example of a poster who is incapable of hearing any point of view or opinion but his own.
He knows this is not what the OP is, but he is so certain he knows what atheists believe that he has to add his wacky off topic ideas.
No matter that on various other threads he has been repeatedly told that atheists believe none of this silly stuff.
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Originally Posted by 007.5
I constantly listen to others points of views and discern them. I know full well what todays atheist forces himself to believe as an alternative to a personal Theistic Creator (God), because I wanted to be an atheist for a good 10 adult years ... and the mantra of 'We just dont see any evidence for a God or Gods' is just a convenient excuse . Atheists see the evidence but choose to suppress that knowledge because it is too threatening and filled with implications. EVERYONE has a particular worldview since we ARE here, we have a fully functioning personal Universe, and those things demand some sort of an affirmative belief system....regardless of not wanting to get into it in any depth. The challenge to those who want to be atheists, IS to show that their religiousity is reasonable and rational and requires far LESS faith than what does Theism and The Christian Faith (which is the exact opposite when carefully scrutinized) .
Thank you so much for reaffirming my points for me.
I constantly listen to others points of views and discern them. I know full well what todays atheist forces himself to believe as an alternative to a personal Theistic Creator (God), because I wanted to be an atheist for a good 10 adult years ... and the mantra of 'We just dont see any evidence for a God or Gods' is just a convenient excuse . Atheists see the evidence but choose to suppress that knowledge because it is too threatening and filled with implications. EVERYONE has a particular worldview since we ARE here, we have a fully functioning personal Universe, and those things demand some sort of an affirmative belief system....regardless of not wanting to get into it in any depth. The challenge to those who want to be atheists, IS to show that their religiousity is reasonable and rational and requires far LESS faith than what does Theism and The Christian Faith (which is the exact opposite when carefully scrutinized) .
Th only thing I don't understand is, if you tried to be an atheist you seemed for ten years to remain in total ignorance of the case for athesm or even what atheism is, and also the sheer paucity of any evidence for any god let alone any particular god.
However, you are here debating and no doubt you can learn something, IF you are willing to open your mind.
I am agnostic. I believe that the truth cannot be known, and that the power of science is not justification enough for disproving the existence of a deity.
I am agnostic. I believe that the truth cannot be known, and that the power of science is not justification enough for disproving the existence of a deity.
Since a deity has never once in the history of mankind ever appeared and made it's existence public, wouldn't its existence have to be proven, rather than disproven?
Think about it like this, I could say that there is an invisible and permeable giant rabbit that is always around me. You can't see it, hear it, taste it, smell it, or touch it. By every possible measure the rabbit is not there so wouldn't I have to PROVE to you that it's there rather than have you disprove that it's not?
Science doesn't need to disprove the existence of God/a Creator/some deity, religion needs to prove that those things actually exist. And they can't.
Since a deity has never once in the history of mankind ever appeared and made it's existence public, wouldn't its existence have to be proven, rather than disproven?
Think about it like this, I could say that there is an invisible and permeable giant rabbit that is always around me. You can't see it, hear it, taste it, smell it, or touch it. By every possible measure the rabbit is not there so wouldn't I have to PROVE to you that it's there rather than have you disprove that it's not?
Science doesn't need to disprove the existence of God/a Creator/some deity, religion needs to prove that those things actually exist. And they can't.
To take the claim of a deity seriously, yes, one would think.
This is why I'm as agnostic about deities as I am, for example, about leprechauns and the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary - which is to say, not at all.
A Disconnection.
In reading the written thoughts of NEP 321, concerning truth, there are disconnects with clarity. Truth can only be given to things in the here and now. One inspects spoken thoughts, or actions and descriptions and verifies, whether truth is given to the thoughts, via words, pictures, and all of the senses. If veracity is accepted though all of the conditions used for verification, whatever the object is, if it can stand up to discussions and through more verifications, then one can be assured that it is a thing.
One thing is vital; if a statement is being tested, records of speech can be made, if sounds or other things can be tested by our senses, then verification can be used through science, with the aid of so called scientific equipment. Proof that there are sounds which we can’t hear can be verified, single atoms can be measured, and so on.
Everything seems hunky dory except, when we get to the discussion about nothing; it becomes useless to even discuss such a waste of time or effort. To find the truth that a god is a part of existence, it must be proven by the believers that items relegated to Mythology should not be there. This is stupid thinking, because it is up to the believers of things for which truth can be given, to prove their hallucinations are real. When anything is to be tested, it has to exist. One can only test material things that actually already exist, as material, or through actions they are proven they exist, before they can leave the Mythology bucket.
To disprove that something that has never existed or stood up to any tests or stupid talk by believers, who also want non believers to prove nothing for them because they have always failed, is mockery. That action of itself proves that believers can be simply ignorant or lazy perhaps in their thinking and use of logic. Those aspects also show they can be assumed to be mad.
Cheers. Snaefell.
Last edited by Snaefell; 09-03-2010 at 04:04 PM..
Reason: Verification
1. Nothing created something (our universe) by accident so it could just hang out.
2. Over billions and billions of years, dirt/rocks/planets/and raw chemicals somehow got joined up ...
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Ans: Simple molecular interaction, the only true mystery now. But wait. Just wait. Remember: 100 yrs ago, they didn't know about bacteria. Remember?
...and out popped the first sign of life from a Cosmic Soup Pond : A one celled protozoa containing specified complexity in the form of purposed informational instructions equivalent to 1,000 sets of encyclopedias. Dont underestimate Pet Rocks...I had once back in the late 1970's and it was a good friend.
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Ooops! Don't forget your other wooden-iconic imaginary friends, Jesus and God!
3. This first living piece of Pond Scum from non living materials and thru compounded mutations upon accidental mutations .... started to multiply itself into higher and higher complexity until there were TWO of the same. Then over many millions and millions of years, started to accidentally evolve upward (even though its against 2 major laws of science)
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Ahhhh yes, that ludicrous fallback rote-chanted excuse that the Creationists LUV to blurt, even though it's irrelevant. 'Nuff said; if I expounded, you'd just ignore it anyhow, since, hey: you have the answer you prefer. And to heck with dem factz, eh?
to become ALL of the many millions of life forms we have today including plants, animals, and Human Beings . It was just a gigantic fluke that our 60 anatomical systems all working in unison so we could live, occured ... its certainly the wonder of time and chance finding a way . Who would have ever thought a piece of Pond Scum had such potential !
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Yeah, it is sort of amazing, (logic often is, by it's very nature...) but when you work through it (let's say a minimum of two Intro Biology classes, plus another two semesters of advanced genetics, oh and some Intro Biochemistry. And let's not forget some starter's level nuclear and non-organic physics. Oh and some Intro astronomy/astrophysics. And then round out your kindergarten Intro into real science with a primer on Special Relativity, preferably by reading a hand-signed edition by Albert E. hisself.
Then you'd perhaps have a beginners reasonable starting point and intro to how this stuff does, in FACT, happen. Care to join the educated, or would you rather just go on blurting out the unintelligible, the factually bereft, the now thoroughly disproven clap-trap spouted on those Creationist websites for the "followers" to parrot and re-chant?
4. Now...somehow (as the piece of Pond Scum was off doing its multiplication thing with great anticipation...) , the Universe was busy developing over 150 extremely narrow Life Enabling Physics Constants all so Earth could be a special place for our great Ancestor, the Pond Scum to thrive .
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Well, I WILL address this common huge error. In fact, all those event horizons, those necessary constants like our distance from the sun, and how various enzyme systems fit only specific molecules that coincidentally occur in our bodies. and on and on.
How else do you think a trial and error process that tests all the bad AND the good concoctions and mixes would produce the results we, logically, do see?
As well, positive mutational events often facilitate an accelerated rate of further mutation since they tend to "point" the participants in better direction by virtue of it's effects. Example: you want to become a better hunter but literally have NO IDEA of proper stalking technique. So you bumble through, like a lion cub learning as you go, but as you "score" a few successes, you become stealthier through knowledge, and through your well-sustained body strength.
Remember now, this mutation you think is so unlikely occurred by the uncountable quadri-zillions. Per hour. Per year. Per century. In literally bah-zillions of liters of that soup you so adamantly think wasn't there.
'Mother' Nature sure has shown us her favor --- How very personal and thoughtful of her to nuture us in her own special way !
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It's actually very typical that the scientifically illiterate, the purposefully and dedicatedly uneducated, (and especially those who feel strongly that they have found their own personal special answer), stand in awe of even the most benign science experiment results in Intro Science class.
When properly explained, however, their awe turns, in many cases including my own, such factual demos turn one on to a life of open-minded thinking, of natural unbounded curiosity and an enjoyment of knowledge.
Quote:
Originally Posted by andyc0803
Since a deity has never once in the history of mankind ever appeared and made it's existence public, wouldn't its existence have to be proven, rather than disproven?
Think about it like this, I could say that there is an invisible and permeable giant rabbit that is always around me. You can't see it, hear it, taste it, smell it, or touch it. By every possible measure the rabbit is not there so wouldn't I have to PROVE to you that it's there rather than have you disprove that it's not?
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I'd say so. Elsewise, I kinda like your bunny. It's not as good as my polar bear, but hey; we're all free to believe our own unlikely but cuddly heros in America, right?
So... where do you guys meet? Should I bring my old fuzzy bunny along, and we can drive nails through it's feet and forearms, and stain it's otherwise white fur with fake blood? That'd be convincing, right?
Science doesn't need to disprove the existence of God/a Creator/some deity, religion needs to prove that those things actually exist. And they can't.
Agreed. Briefly stated;
1) √ We have growing absolute non-religious proofs of almost all the things that a biblical interpretation mandates as Godly and Godly ONLY.
2) √ We have absolutely NO proofs of any Godly actions. Yeah, we have amazing recoveries of sick kids whose parents prayed for them, or tornados oddly changing directions and not hitting that church (though it's not noted that the tornado then goes on to hit a trailer park where it kills 25 people, many of whom were ardent church types...) but I'm requiring the following criteria for "proofs" (at the risk of being boringly repetitive... my apologies guys!)
We necessarily require results that are simultaneously: unambiguous, irrefutable, incontrovertible and reproducible.
Based on those simple requirements, we'll NEVER have anything that even faintly resembles proof of God and his acts. It's always just faith, but again; so many of the necessary elements of a Godly world have been shown to be WRONG or misinterpreted.
You know; like Evolution, the geological column, genome lineage tracking, fossils and the latest technical dating methods that all (wow!) independently verify dates, events, etc.
As well, there's absolutely no confirming historical writings from other contemporaneous cultures (as in: they existed at the same time, but were isolated from that Christian/Roman culture. Like, for instance, the Chinese and Japanese with their colorful, precise and well documented histories. But, oddly, these lack any documentation of such events as a globally inundating flood.)
Finally, what to think when we find established fables from earlier cultures which the biblical authors have obviously, almost verbatim, plagiarized. Like Noah's Ark, and the parting of the Red Sea.
Lesson?: Never let a good fable that has already proven itself marketable out in the goat-herd fields go to waste, huh?
This is just a friendly suggestion to NEP321, and to many others, who use the word Agnostic, apparently without ever looking at the meaning of the word. This is very simple to overcome in the day of the computer and without reaching behind one to flick through an encyclopedia or dictionary. As shown, the word Agnostic has the letter A preceding the word gnostic, and actually becoming part of the word, thus Agnostic now stands alone. It was proposed by the head of the Huxley Family, (Yep those Huxleys) and the one who led the charge forward proclaiming the works of Darwin. He suggested the word Gnostic with the attached letter A to make it as simple as the word Atheist. After approaching the so called Monks who add and remove words from the Oxford Dictionary, he mentioned he didn't believe a word or anything else that Gnostics spouted. After a lot of discussion the word was accepted, and understood to reflect exactly the same reasoning why the letter A is attached to the front of the word theist. It simply means that folk who use the word Agnostic, are stating they do not believe in the meanings of anything the gnostics (A Greek religious organization) stated about their belief system.
One must remember that the 'Oxford Monks' who are in charge of the adding and removal of words to the famous English Dictionary, are Bigoted Monks. Now that statement is factual, otherwise the Monks of today would have many years ago, removed their silly insult to non believers of gods from the Booklet to Editors. The insult is that the word Atheist cannot be used with a Capital A. That rule was to avoid the word Atheist from being the first word in any paragraph. The monks figured it was (is) an insult to their god. Most older Universities, are outgrowths of the Monastic System. Apparently, most editors up to the present are bigoted as well and use the Oxford Editing Book as a sampler for good editorship.
What has never been explained by the Oxford Monks, is how the Hell, mere words used in communication can be an insult to their most Supreme, Perfect, Invisible, Caring God.
This is just a friendly suggestion to NEP321, and to many others, who use the word Agnostic, apparently without ever looking at the meaning of the word. This is very simple to overcome in the day of the computer and without reaching behind one to flick through an encyclopedia or dictionary. As shown, the word Agnostic has the letter A preceding the word gnostic, and actually becoming part of the word, thus Agnostic now stands alone. It was proposed by the head of the Huxley Family, (Yep those Huxleys) and the one who led the charge forward proclaiming the works of Darwin. He suggested the word Gnostic with the attached letter A to make it as simple as the word Atheist. After approaching the so called Monks who add and remove words from the Oxford Dictionary, he mentioned he didn't believe a word or anything else that Gnostics spouted. After a lot of discussion the word was accepted, and understood to reflect exactly the same reasoning why the letter A is attached to the front of the word theist. It simply means that folk who use the word Agnostic, are stating they do not believe in the meanings of anything the gnostics (A Greek religious organization) stated about their belief system.
One must remember that the 'Oxford Monks' who are in charge of the adding and removal of words to the famous English Dictionary, are Bigoted Monks. Now that statement is factual, otherwise the Monks of today would have many years ago, removed their silly insult to non believers of gods from the Booklet to Editors. The insult is that the word Atheist cannot be used with a Capital A. That rule was to avoid the word Atheist from being the first word in any paragraph. The monks figured it was (is) an insult to their god. Most older Universities, are outgrowths of the Monastic System. Apparently, most editors up to the present are bigoted as well and use the Oxford Editing Book as a sampler for good editorship.
What has never been explained by the Oxford Monks, is how the Hell, mere words used in communication can be an insult to their most Supreme, Perfect, Invisible, Caring God.
Cheers. Snaefell.
You're confusing the word "gnostic" (lower-case "g") which refers to knowledge, with the Gnostic religious movement (capital "G"). Agnostic by definition is a (without)/gnosis (knowledge). It has nothing to do with the Gnostic religious movement.
gnos·tic
–adjective Also, gnos·ti·cal.
1. pertaining to knowledge. 2. possessing knowledge, esp. esoteric knowledge of spiritual matters.
3. ( initial capital letter) pertaining to or characteristic of the Gnostics. –noun 4. ( initial capital letter) a member of any of certain sects among the early Christians who claimed to have superior knowledge of spiritual matters, and explained the world as created by powers or agencies arising as emanations from the Godhead.
Etymology Agnostic (Greek: ἀ- a-, without + γνῶσις gnōsis, knowledge) was used by Thomas Henry Huxley in a speech at a meeting of the Metaphysical Society in 1876[7] to describe his philosophy which rejects all claims of spiritual or mystical knowledge. Early Christian church leaders used the Greek word gnosis (knowledge) to describe "spiritual knowledge." Agnosticism is not to be confused with religious views opposing the ancient religious movement of Gnosticism in particular; Huxley used the term in a broader, more abstract sense.[8] Huxley identified agnosticism not as a creed but rather as a method of skeptical, evidence-based inquiry.[9][10]
In recent years, scientific literature dealing with neuroscience and psychology has used the word to mean "not knowable".[11] In technical and marketing literature, agnostic often has a meaning close to "independent"—for example, "platform agnostic" or "hardware agnostic."
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A suggestion.
) pertaining to or characteristic of the Gnostics. 
